Wow. To call that aircraft a pile of feces is an insult to perfectly nice piles of feces.

just get it over with, send our defense programs the way of NASA and start buying Rafales.

It's a great aircraft that can outperform all variants of the Hornet, and is already navalized and has trapped aboard a U.S. boat. (As seen here)

(Hook's not down in the shot, so it's just a touch-and-go. But trust me, they've landed on U.S. carriers in the past during joint exercises.)

However, as you can see from the picture, it's delta wing requires a pretty high angle-of-attack (AOA, or alpha) in landing configuration. That makes spotting the deck and meatball kind of tricksy, and not something I'd want to do in the soup. But it would be appropriate for the USAF.

It's a shame the Marines rely so much upon LHAs in the fleet, cos that's pretty much the only place where Harrier's need to use VTOL/STOVL regularly. Otherwise, a conventional aircraft would be completely appropriate for their needs as well.

Jack Lew has an interesting Golden Parachute - Citigroup gives him a large bonus if he leaves the bank for a "high level position with the United States government or regulatory body." I wonder why they would do that?

I heard about this on Sirius this morning, but wanted to wait to comment until the brief had been filed (I think Thursday is the deadline). This is an extremely encouraging development, especially as there are several signatories to the brief who previously ran for political office with an anti-same-sex marriage position. Like Meg Whitman, who ran for CA governor in 2010 as a vocal supporter of Prop 8.

Yesterday the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated an injunction against the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and held that the anti-whaling organization is engaged in piracy in violation of international law.

Shyster wrote:Yesterday the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated an injunction against the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and held that the anti-whaling organization is engaged in piracy in violation of international law.

I'm all for a moratorium on whaling, but these guys that sail around and crash into ships at sea and generally behave like idiots are, well, idiots. I'm particularly fond of the group that bought the mega-expensive catamaran and set about harassing a Japanese whaler..... that promptly rammed the thing and cut it in two.

And fwiw, whale apparently has a flavor similar to antlered game animals like deer or moose. There was a restaurant up in Santa Monica that got caught selling whale meat as an off-menu special a couple years ago. Yeah, they aren't around any more.

The show "Whale Wars" follows Sea Shepherd each season. Nearly every attempt the make at disabling ships fails. It's kind of funny how mad they get at whalers for trying to keep them away from their boats as they're trying to toss jars of acid onto the whaling boats.

I just re-read that article about the LA Dept. of Health ordering the destruction of 1,600 pounds of venison. Good God man....and the best part was, the firestorm started when someone getting a free meal at the shelter complained about getting deer meat.

Post his picture in every shelter across the state, and make sure he has never sheltered or fed by the state ever again.

There is no flaming way in hell I’m answering this drastically overbroad and intrusive survey. Supposedly, the government has the authority to fine me if I refuse to answer. Well, come and get me. I’ll keep everyone appraised on how this works out.